


Psychics, 1997

by sinchester



Series: Psychics [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: If you want it, M/M, Promise, there will be more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinchester/pseuds/sinchester
Summary: Sam has had some... interesting experiences with psychics. This is the first of several.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dollylux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/gifts).



> For the living legend that is Violet Mae.
> 
> Also, for Geny.

**March, 1997**

Sam Winchester was fourteen. He wore thriftstore 'the Smiths' t shirts and baggy hand-me-down jeans, pinned Nirvana badges onto his backpack, always had a book in his hand (just in case), and had hair too shaggy for his own good.

Naturally, he'd attract the 'weird kids' in school.

 

There was Emily. She was nice. Babbled about comics a lot. Sam pretended to understand. And Ben. Ben was super cool, in Sam's view. It was easier to count the books Ben hadn't read than the books he had. Sam always appreciated that in a person. He saw himself in that feat.

... And then there was Frank.

 

Frank had always had a slightly strange sort of air about him. He was one of those people whose names should really belong to those over 40 alone - Sam couldn't possibly comprehend gazing upon a newborn baby and deciding 'Frank' just suited its face. He wore clothes that were blatantly too big for him, like Sam did (the Smiths t shirts were the exception. They fit - Dean wouldn't be caught dead in any of those), but he was an only child. He had told Sam that himself. 

 

What's more, he used to look at you like you were baring your soul in front of him. It was odd -- it was almost as if he knew something about you that you, yourself, were blissfully unaware of. 

Sam didn't know if that was the reason why no one ever approached him, meaning he remained ever the cliché kid punching holes into his pencil case with a pen on his very own table in the back of the class. It could be that, or any combination of the seemingly endless list of reasons why Frank had been instantly branded 'weird'.

 

That is, Sam didn't know at first.

 

He found out eventually.

-

Sam recognised that, being such a temporary fixture in every town he visited as a teenager, he was at school to work, and not play. Thus, he didn't invest time or emotion in friends, for fear (no, for certainty) of disappointment and upset later down the line. He was happy to do pretty much everything alone. Listen to Elliott Smith on the CD Walkman he'd spent the best part of 6 months saving up for (ignoring the fact that Dean gave Sam a part of their food money so Sam could have 'pocket money') over lunch, sit in the quiet, thank God, of the library, and absorb whatever information he was bound to have to regurgitate during some sort of pop quiz the following week... In fact, Sam had grown to enjoy solitude. It meant he could get things done.

 

Frank, however, having come to sit down at Sam's table during break, appeared to have a different idea.

 

"... What are you thinking about?"

Sam Winchester had never received that question before. It was an inquiry that no one would ever ask him because no one ever even thought of Sam in enough to depth to want to know what was on his mind (apart from Dean. Always Dean. But Dean was different.). 

 

He didn't know quite how to answer. What should he say? That he was thinking about how he was going to jerk off in the shower that night to the heavily imprinted mental image of his shirtless, sweaty, grimy older brother fixing his vintage car? That he was the cliché of all clichés, pining over someone he could never have, teenage angst, tears, nail-biting, the whole trope? That he was in a slightly healthier state than having an Oedipus complex, but not quite as healthy as the next guy?

"Uh... that physics assignment due for tomorrow. I haven't even started it."

 

He had completed it the day it was set. As Frank's eyes bore into him, he knew, he just knew, that Frank saw through that comment. That Sam was thinking of something he could never tell anyone. Never, ever, let anyone else even know had crossed his mind once (in truth, it didn't really cross his mind - that would imply it had a sense of fleetingness. No, it was more like a growth that constantly expanded, becoming more and more impossible to ignore with every waking, and not to mention sleeping, moment).

"Right" Frank agreed reluctantly. Absent-mindedly. "I've haven't, erm- I haven't done it either."

-

**May, 1997**

Sam had saved Frank for last. For some reason, he had felt some sort of intuition that his goodbye with Frank would be different. Different to the others. He didn't know how it would be separate from the rest.

He just knew it would.

 

Sam didn't bother with "I'll call you once I've moved" or "I'll miss you" or "I'll see you around". He knew that Frank would be upfront - wouldn't even pretend, like Emily, like Ben, like the countless others he'd left behind with a trail of falling handouts and gasoline, that any of those statements were anywhere close to the truth.

So, all Sam said was "goodbye."

 

"Bye, Sam. It was cool to copy my history homework off you every now and again." Frank punched the other boy's arm playfully, attempting to lighten the mood and in turn sullen, brooding, lonely teenage boy before him.

"'Every now and again?! Every Sunday at 8 o'clock at night you'd come running to the door begging me to let you copy my homework in exchange for lollipops!" Sam laughed, neglecting to mention that it was a motel door Frank had been approaching towards the end of every weekend.

(Not that Frank had commented on that. Sam suspected he never would. Not with that sort of thing. Not with anything, really.)

Frank grinned a shit-eating grin in response, and allowed a few moments to pass. Just as Sam began to turn away and run back to the Impala that was humming impatiently by the pavement, Frank half-shouted, half-cried, "Sam!"

 

"Yeah? "A pause that could have lasted 5 seconds or 5 minutes, in Sam's book.

"... You know I know, right?" Sam's brow furrowed in concern. 

 

"Know what?" That he wasn't straight? Everyone had assumed that - and they weren't wrong. That he didn't really have a home? Word had gotten around, and Frank had experienced the motel one too many times for anyone's liking.

What else could it be?

 

"That you're in love with your brother."

 

Frank was one to deadpan - he said what he meant and he meant what he said, but it had never been... Not like this.

Sam had never felt so humiliated. His cheeks were burning, there was a sting, coming like a flash of lightning in his veins, and Sam swallowed thickly, turning away once more, not knowing how to answer to what Frank had to say more than ever at this point.

 

"Sam, wait! I don't- I didn't-" Sam hadn't even noticed that he was putting one foot in front of the other until Frank began to call him and his voice was steadily fading.

 

"Sorry. He's emotional with goodbyes" Sam remarked blankly once he finally slid into the passenger seat of the car.

When the engine burst into life and stole another white-picket-fence opportunity for Sam, he didn't look back.

 

And he always looked back.


End file.
